A TRIBUTE TO CHARLES GERHARDT

In honour of one of the greatest conductors of film music, CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO presents a landmark 4 part radio series dedicated to Charles Gerhardt’s film music re-recordings with the National Philharmonic Orchestra. The goal was to feature every single album from the RCA Gerhardt Classic Film Scores catalogue on the program as well as feature some of Gerhardt’s other recordings which were released on label’s such as Varese Sarabande, Citadel and Cheskey.

Here is a rundown of the programming.

PART I features music from the Cheskey release of Hollywood Screen Classics featuring late 1960’s and early 1970’s recordings of 2001, East of Eden, Three Coins in the Fountain and Shane.

You will also get to sample music from composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann as we feature music from The Sea Hawk, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Prince Valiant, Taras Bulba, Captain from Castile, The Robe, On Dangerous Ground and more.

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PART II features music from composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Dimitri Tiomkin, Miklos Rozsa, William Walton, and Max Steiner.

You will hear music from such films as Kings Row (a specially edited suite from the Varese Sarabande release), Lost Horizon, The Red House, Henry V, The Fountainhead (with Gerhardt’s piano solo inserted back into the suite) and a 43-minute suite of music from Gone With The Wind.

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PART III features music from two contemporary masters… John Williams and Lee Holdridge. For the first two hours and twenty minutes of the program, we feature music from John Williams’ Star Wars Trilogy and a brilliant 20-minute suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

For the last 40 minutes, you will hear music from Lee Holdridge’s scores to The Beastmaster, Wizards and Warriors, The Great Whales and the complete East of Eden concert suite. The Lee Holdridge album was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

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PART IV features everything else that we didn’t have a chance to play during the first three shows. During this last program, you will hear music from John Williams, Michael J. Lewis, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and more. You will hear spectacular re-recordings of The Reivers, The Madwoman of Chaillot, White Witch Doctor, The Adventures of Don Juan and another suite from The Adventures of Robin Hood. We will also be featuring music from a recording that was produced by Charles Gerhardt featuring conductor David Raksin and the New Philharmonic Orchestra. You will hear three pieces from Raksin’s scores to Laura, Forever Amber, and The Bad and the Beautiful.

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Personal Note: Charles Gerhardt singlehandedly introduced me to the wonderful music from the Golden Age and I think that sentiment can be shared by many film music fans that have heard these fabulous recordings. And after finishing the last show and looking back on the whole experience of featuring music from one of my favourite conductors, I have to say that this is hands down the best radio program I have ever produced. A lot of time and care was taken into creating the show from finding all of the Classic Film Scores recordings to the selection of pieces for each program.  Now, I didn’t do all of this alone. I want to thank Tom Kiefner and Miguel Andrade for their invaluable assistance in tracking down albums and helping with the research for the program.

So, I hope you enjoy the shows. And for those film music fans that have never heard these albums, I highly recommend you find some time to listen to the shows. The Gerhardt recordings are the crown jewel of my film music collection and I hope that maybe by listening to the show you might have a better appreciation for Golden Age material. I guarantee that your idea of Golden Age music and re-recordings will change.